All The Inside Jokes From the 'SBTB' Reunion

Ever since those Next Generation kids took hold of the Saturday morning time slot, Saved by the Bell fans have longed wistfully for a reunion of the original Saved By The Bell cast. Those many ’90s teens who learned all about caffeine pill addiction and how to deal with the death of a friend’s lizard from the Bayside High clique ached to see the sextet in true form once more. Among those desperate aficionados was, apparently, Jimmy Fallon, who has been toiling for years to reconfigure the Saved by the Bell gang on the network that birthed them in the first place. He might not have gotten all six, but he came as close as any of us ever will.

On Wednesday night’s episode of The Tonight Show, Fallon recreated the Bayside High set as a playground for Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkley, and Tiffani no-longer-Amber Thiessen. (Absent were Lark Voorhies, whose mental health of late has been a topic of concern, and Dustin Diamond, who was recently arrested for allegedly stabbing a man in a bar.) But Fallon made do with present company, taking as many opportunities as possible to toss a few inside jokes around the circle.

He and Gosselaar started with the obligatory series references: Zack Morris' fourth wall-breaking intro and a spoken work recitation of the series' memorable theme song. But things quickly took a leap forward, addressing the actors' lives since leaving the program.

Gosselaar teased Lopez, as A.C. Slater, for his penchant for breaking out into ballet sequences, sardonically encouraging him to pursue a spot on Dancing with the Stars (in reference to Lopez's real life appearance on the show).

Later on, Gosselaar made mention of Thiessen's post-Bayside live in Beverly Hills, where she'd live in "another zip code," an obvious gag about her stint on Beverly Hills 90210. (There was also a pretty unavoidable bit about Theissen's current pregnancy.)

The best of these jokes came at the expense of Berkley, whom Gosselaar taunted as an unlikely candidate for a career in stripping — a clear jab at her role in the delightfully terrible 1995 film Showgirls.

But even this didn't top what was sure to be Saved by the Bell fans' favorite gag in the sketch: another Berkley-directed bit, which saw her breaking out into hysterics over Jimmy Fallon's admission that he would be moving to New York to become a comedian. So overwhelmed with emotion, Berkley (as Jesse Spano) shouted her most iconic line from Saved by the Bell history: "I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so... scared!" Even series newbies will recognize this instance thanks to its veritable dominance over meme culture.

So, all in all, a job well done by Fallon and the Bayside High reunion committee.

Image: NBC